Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, April 9, 1995 TAG: 9504130014
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-3 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE:
DATELINE: IVANHOE LENGTH: Long
My friends are going to Key West, Aruba, exotic places where drinks come with umbrellas and the usual pagan pleasures of collegiate spring breaks ensue. I'm going to Ivanhoe, Va., with a handful of fellow Virginia Tech students as part of a YMCA volunteer work program.
I have my doubts about this trip. At the first meeting, I learn we will be allowed only one shower during our week-long stay. This disturbs me as I like showers, soap and things of a hygenic nature.
I also learn we will be digging ditches, renovating houses, and clearing brush. My father's pet name for me, "Weakling," should indicate I've never been really big on manual labor. I've been made fun of by friends because I can barely carry a case of beer. I always think about helping people and doing volunteer work but I've never done anything like this. I guess I decided it was time I actually did something.
I'm a city girl. I'm used to big buildings, noise, lots of mean people scurrying about. Suddenly, I find myself in this other world as my fellow Tech students and I step out of our large, rented white van. We're in Ivanhoe, and people are smiling, waving, saying hello.
Soon we are joined by students from Radford and Miami of Ohio. We put on name tags and mill about shyly. We take a hike and come back for dinner. As night falls we go to the firehouse where we will be sleeping. One big room full of strangers with sleeping bags. One big room with a guy who snores very loudly (sorry, Charlie). In Charlie's defense, he did try to remedy this problem with an apparatus called "Snore-Guard." It is a bandage-like device that stretches across the nose, but if it helped I'd hate to hear Charlie sleep without it. Eventually fatigue overcomes the sound of snoring and we fall asleep.
The next day we rise and are assigned to work groups. I will be clearing an overgrown garden. Soon I find myself on my hands and knees pulling roots and weeds. I am unaware that many of the plants I'm grabbing hold of happen to be poison ivy, but I'll find out tomorrow. For now, my arms are free of large, itching welts.
As I'm pulling away on the evil overgrowth I look up to see Ted, the red-haired guy from Miami, staring down at me. "So, why are you here?" he asks. My cover is blown. He knows I'm not one of them. I've never done Habitat for Humanity or even given blood. I am a virgin volunteer. I struggle to come up with an impressive answer.
"Uh, I'm not sure," I finally respond. Not too impressive, yet honest. The thing is I'm really not sure why I'm here. I look at the scratches on my arm from thorn-bearing vegetation. Sweat is dripping into my eyes. Somewhere, my friends are stretched out on white sand with their umbrella drinks.
"Why are you here?" I ask Ted.
"I think stuff like this should be done," Ted answers without a pause and returns to hacking away at roots with a pick-ax. I want to be like Ted. I really do, but I'm still wondering if I can find the keys to the van and go back to Blacksburg without anyone noticing. That's when I get stung by a hornet. Perhaps God is angry with my lack of enthusiasm.
Suddenly like a beacon of salvation, Sharon arrives with a big smile, a jug of cold water and the inquiry, "Does anyone want to take a break and go to my farm with me? I can take five people." Next thing I know, I am in the back of Sharon's pickup with Ted, Ann, Nicki and Brooke. Sharon lives just outside of Ivanhoe on a dairy farm and we're going to see the cows get milked. Seems harmless enough.
As we're watching the machines sucking the milk out of the cows around us, something wet splatters my face and I discover just how indiscriminate cows can be when nature calls. Ted hands me a towel and laughs uncontrollably. One of the farmhands smiles at me and says, "Ever heard the expression, 's--- happens'? Well , it does."
Now I know I've angered God.
Well at least I have something interesting to share at dinner when we hold hands and talk about the best thing that happened to us that day. Only I notice no one really wants to hold my hand.
I approach Maxine, president of the Ivanhoe Civic League. I plead to take a shower. She backs away and agrees a shower is in order.
That night I began to think that with the way my luck is going, all that is left for me to experience in Appalachia is perhaps a bear attack or an accident with power tools. Joe from Tech, however, tells me that things could only get better.
Joe is right. The next day I am assigned the much sought after "KP," or Kitchen Patrol. This is a day to make Kool-Aid, help Phyllis, the cook, prepare the meals and wash dishes. I am inside. I am safe. That's when the large poison ivy welts began to develop.
I begin to grow angry when I see the perky T-shirts bearing the slogan, "Ivanhoe: That Special Little Town."
"Do you want to buy one?" I am asked.
"Uh, not right now," I reply, scratching.
On the third day I am assigned to work with a group at a local cemetery. We are dropped off and met by the Crockett brothers, Eugene and Sherman. Something happens to me while I listen to Eugene and Sherman speak. "You hear so much bad stuff on the news, kids with drugs and guns. It's easy to think life's all bad," Eugene says. "I look at all you kids who come here and I realize life's not all bad. We know you could have gone anywhere but you came here. It means so much."
It is easy to think life's all bad. I've certainly thought that. Suddenly, I want to be here. I am glad to be here. I want to be nowhere else. As we dig holes for fence posts around the cemetery, I look around at everyone. They are all working hard, sweating, and helping make parts of Ivanhoe look a little better. Everyone is smiling.
Suddenly it hits me: These people have given up a week of their lives to help total strangers. I crack a smile for the first time all week.
I start enjoying what I am doing. I grab a pick-ax to help dig up the many tree stumps in the cemetery. "Give the ax to Tony," I am told. "You can't get this one."
The thing is, the man was right. I had never held a pick-ax before. With a defeated look, I relinquish my tool of destruction. Tony quickly chops the stump into submission and pulls it from the ground.
That's when I team up with Eric from Ohio. He teaches me how to use a pick-ax and we begin pulling stumps out of the ground. He digs up around them with a shovel. I chop away at the roots until they come free. We even conquer what we dubbed "the stump from Hell."
Soon Tony and the anonymous man who said I couldn't ax were marveling at my brawn. OK, maybe I'm exaggerating a tad, but I'm pretty handy now with a pick-ax, I must say.
Sue, the Radford feminist, is proud when she learns of my display of womanly strength. "Don't let anyone tell you there are things you can't do," she tells me.
Right on, Sue!
The next day I work at Jubilee Park. It's where the annual Jubilee celebration is held around the Fourth of July. M.H., Maxine's husband, patiently helps some of us learn the art of hammering. We dig holes for posts and all of us help put the roof on a shelter by the sand volleyball courts. My arms barely touch the roof as it ascends, lifted away by people much taller than I. Connie and I, the shortest members of our crew, run to steady ladders. It's an amazing thing to watch a group of people trust each other and raise a roof together.
As we drove home from Ivanhoe that last night, the sun slipped behind the hills dotted with cows. Soon it was all cars, asphalt and highway signs.
I thought of the sky over the bonfire or the way stars shine when free of shopping malls and high-rises cluttering the sky.
I looked around the van at heads drooping with sleep. Our hands hadn't picked up umbrella drinks that week; they'd gotten blisters.
I smiled and sunk back in my seat, proud of what we'd done.
Adrianne Bee is a senior at Virginia Tech and also works for the Roanoke Times & World-News. She grew up in Alexandria, where there are fewer cows than in Ivanhoe.
by CNB